Various treatments have been proposed to stabilize soils and roads subject to washboarding, dusting and loss of moisture retention. Materials commonly used include calcium chloride, grouping materials and sodium silicates.
Lignosulfonate has also been used as a stabilizing agent. This material is a waste product produced in large quantities by the sulfite pulping process. Lignosulfonate, however, has not been widely used because it does not evenly impregnate soils leaving untreated areas subject to washboarding, dusting and loss of moisture retention. It is also found that lignosulfonates leach out of the soil quickly under cycles of wet and dry weather, requiring substantial road grader maintenance and reapplication of lignosulfonate.